“Cross-dresser doused with gasoline” is a headline in today’s IndyStar.
Alternative headline in UPI: Woman douses cross-dresser with gasoline
INDIANAPOLIS, July 5 (UPI) — An Indianapolis woman was held without bond Wednesday after she allegedly doused a cross-dressing man with gasoline and threatened to set him on fire.
Jacqueline Dejournett, 42, faced initial charges of battery and criminal recklessness, the Indianapolis Star reported.
Dejournett was arguing with Cece Miller, 38, at a gas station Tuesday night, police said. She filled a plastic jug with gasoline and doused Miller with the fuel while threatening to light him on fire. Miller was dressed in women’s clothes, police said.
Dejournett also went inside the gas station’s payment office and poured gasoline onto a rug and a candy display, police said.
A station clerk locked Dejournett in the office until police arrived.
That’s the kind of headline that makes my heart stop. Fortunately, it didn’t have a tragic outcome. And the story itself seemed to have little to do with the person in question being a cross-dresser, so I wonder why it made a headline, other than the sensationalism of the idea of a person wearing the clothing of a different sex than their own.
I wonder if we’ll look back at news items like this with incredulousness 100 years from now — they way do today when reading news items from the recent past, regarding black people and women, that contained casually racist and sexist statements.